While in the past, audio and/or audio-visual media was primarily accessed via free, terrestrial broadcast of television or radio media, media may now be accessed in many different ways. For instance, cable and satellite broadcast services provide access to a large variety of channels of television, movie and radio media, typically on a subscription basis. In addition, such services also often include a video-on-demand component, allowing consumers to access media (usually for a fee) whenever they wish.
The rise in popularity of the Internet has further diversified the media delivery ecosystem, providing many new ways to access media (e.g., television, movies, radio, webpages, etc.). For example, Internet based services from entities such as Amazon, Netflix, Roku and/or others enable users to stream movies and television programs at any time. Some such services do not require subscription to a cable or satellite provider, and are sometimes referred to as over the top (OTT) services. Moreover, whereas traditional television and radio broadcasts were primarily presented at the time of receipt and, thus, viewed in a time linear fashion, Internet and other technologies have enabled media to be watched in a non-linear fashion. In particular, media from OTT and other platforms enable the presentation of media to be stopped, paused, rewound, fast forwarded and/or otherwise time shifted. Thus, the consumer can access Internet distributed media in a non-linear fashion from any of a variety of different sources.
The figures are not to scale. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts.